Knute Nelson

Knute Nelson (2 February 1843-28 April 1923) was a member of the US House of Representatives (R-MN 5) from 4 March 1883 to 3 March 1889, preceding Solomon Comstock; Governor of Minnesota from 4 January 1893 to 31 January 1895, succeeding William Rush Merriam and preceding David Marston Clough; and a US Senator from 4 March 1895 to 28 April 1923, succeeding William D. Washburn and preceding Magnus Johnson.

Biography
Knute was born on 2 February 1843 in Evanger, Norway, and he used his birthplace as his surname, as he was illegitimate. In 1849, his mother took him with her to New York City, and the family travelled to Albany and then to Buffalo. They continued on to Chicago and then to Palmyra, Wisconsin, and he took his stepfather's surname of Nelson. During his teens, his admiration for Stephen A. Douglas led to him joining the Democratic Party, and he taught other Norwegian immigrants in Pleasant Springs, Wisconsin. Nelson served in the US Army during the American Civil War, and was wounded at the Battle of Port Hudson. His disdain for the Copperheads led to him becoming a Republican after the war.

In 1867, Nelson was admitted to the bar, and he opened his law practice in Madison, Wisconsin. He served in the Wisconsin State Assembly from 1868 to 1869 and in the Minnesota Senate from 1874 to 1878, having moved his law practice to Alexandria, Minnesota in 1870. He went on to serve in the US House of Representatives from 1883 to 1889, as Governor from 1893 to 1895, and in the US Senate from 1895 until his death in 1923. In 1889, he promoted an act to force the Ojibwe onto reservations in the west of the state. He died in office in 1923.